Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/102

 one-thought heads of the loafers assembled before his door.

"Several other women'll be needin' a doctor's attention purty soon, from what I've noticed," Larrimore said. "I'm darned glad mine ain't one of 'em. I wouldn't trust that feller to fetch a calf into this world, let alone a kid."

Larrimore was a young man, dark and surly, resentful of his condition in life, spitefully envious of everybody whose profits or earnings were greater than his own. He had a dark saying that the world owed him a living, always hinting by his manner that he was just about ready with his plans for enforcing the collection. He had a hedge of upended black hair that gave him the appearance of one of those crested barnyard fowls of Mediterranean breed which is always a trouble maker among its kind. His wife, whom he was not above giving a slap now and then, was sitting cowed and saddened in the little room behind the shop, waiting to explain to customers that her husband had been so busy he hadn't got around to their half-soles yet.

"He says he didn't come here to practice in town," Justice sneered, "but I wouldn't like to tempt him by offerin' him a case."

"He was so anxious to get one he rushed in among the bullets after it," Dine said, feigning an appreciation of the enterprising spirit in his subtle way of wit so keenly relished by his world.

"He thinks he saved Bill Cottrell's life," Justice told them, chuckling over the absurdity.

"I wonder what Charley Burnett'd say about that?" Dine speculated, with scornful lifting of his upper lip in